relicts of serfdom—to deny the stratification of the peasantry
along class lines, and the class struggle in the countryside,
to invent all manner of projects for “socialisation of land”,
“equalisation”, etc.
While Lenin aimed his criticism against the Socialist-
Revolutionaries, he also exposed the anti-Marxist stand
on the agrarian issue in Russia and the peasantry taken
by P. P. Maslov, A. S. Martynov, D. B. Ryazanov and
other Mensheviks-to-be, who denied that the peasantry
had a revolutionary role to play, and who regarded it as
a solid reactionary mass. By contrast, Lenin emphasised
the dual nature of Narodism: the democratic side, inasmuch
as they waged a struggle against the relicts of serfdom,
and the utopian and reactionary side, expressive of the
urge on the part of the petty bourgeois to perpetuate his
small farm. In this context, Lenin pointed to the need to
take account of the two sides of Narodism in evaluating
its historical importance.
The first part ends with two plans for “The Peasantry
and Social-Democracy” (see pp. 69-70). These plans warrant
the assumption that Lenin had the intention of writing
a special work on the subject to sum up his studies of agrar-
ian relations and the experience gained by socialist parties
abroad in working out agrarian programmes, and to sub-
stantiate the R.S.D.L.P.’s policy towards the peasantry.
With his usual insight, he points to the “practical impor-
tance of the agrarian question in the possibly near future”
(see p. 70), and notes the specific nature of class relations
in the Russian countryside, and the need for the rural
proletariat to fight on two flanks: against the landowners
and the relicts of serfdom, and against the bourgeoisie.
Lenin marked out the guiding principles which were to
serve the Marxist party as a beacon in the intricate condi-
tions of the class struggle in the countryside: “Together
with the peasant bourgeoisie against the landowners. To-
gether with the urban proletariat against the peasant
bourgeoisie” (see p. 69).
The writings in the second part of the present volume
are a reflection of his critical processing of a great mass
of facts and statistical data from bourgeois and petty-
bourgeois agrarian works and official sources. Of special